The main issue appears to be that the attack crippled JLR’s internal systems and production databases, preventing them from manufacturing new cars because they cannot properly track parts or generate serial numbers.
I’ve also read reports claiming that around 40k vehicles have already been built but are now essentially “ghost cars” since they aren’t registered in the system.
Imagine what would happen if JLR had to issue a safety recall without knowing which components are installed in which vehicles.
Did they not have a disaster recovery plan in place? It's not amazing that they got hit with a breach. It's amazing that they couldn't just "nuke from orbit" and start with a day-old snapshot (yeah, that's massively oversimplified, but still, it shouldn't take months and $billions$ to recover either).
And that 40k ghost car doesn't sound realistic. LR only makes ~400k vehicles/year. That 10% of their annual output got "lost" beggars belief.
From their point of view it was a good plan - given JLR is owned by Tata who had the resources to bail them out and didn't they (Tata) likely see it as a good deal.
Late stage capitalism in action as usual - privatise the profits, socialise the costs.
Technically what the government did was underwrite the loan but again - why is the government underwriting the loan when Tata has the resources to do that (13bn net income at last FY).
The main issue appears to be that the attack crippled JLR’s internal systems and production databases, preventing them from manufacturing new cars because they cannot properly track parts or generate serial numbers.
I’ve also read reports claiming that around 40k vehicles have already been built but are now essentially “ghost cars” since they aren’t registered in the system.
Imagine what would happen if JLR had to issue a safety recall without knowing which components are installed in which vehicles.